Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2002 00:01:35 -0700
From: maa32
Subject: (urth) verbal suggestions
Roy, there was one more thing I wanted to comment on about the wording of the
dust quote. It says: "there could be little point in creating us in one place
and creating us again in another. Besides, the dust of that whorl can
scacrely be identical to the dust of this one." Now go down a little:
"I could not find Green there, or Blue, or the Whorl, or even the
constellations" But he can see the light of the red sun from Blue, right?
That's the big objection I keep hearing. He can't see Blue in the heavens
because he's standing on it. I don't know why he can't see Green - Hoof sees
Lune later on and calls it Green, "Green came up, bigger and brighter than we
ever see it on Blue. Or want to, either." (356). This makes it seem the
same, but then he says (2 chapters later) "Green was up above the mainmast,
and it seemed like if we put up the main top it would touch it. Our Green is
not as big as theirs, but ours was plenty bright." (366) BUT we know that the
moon was closer in Severian's time than it is in ours or Ushas, when the
gravity upheavals of the solar system pulled it out a little. This is the
thing: if Green comes closer than the moon (which it supposedly does, at
conjunction) then it wouldn't seem smaller if it was big at all. It would
have to be itty bitty, and therefore have less gravity than we have been
talking about. I propose that it is the same size as the moon, but it has
moved back to the moons original orbit, but in an oddly unstable one which
decays and is then corrected, kind of like a fish tail when you lose control
of your car: it goes to the left and to the right until it is straight again,
at that middle distance between the farthest point and conjunction (note that
conjunction is still not as close as the moon appears to Hoof). It will
stabilize at the old moon's orbit eventually.
Read this passage again, as well:
Think of a whorl so old that even its seasons have worn out ... a whorl on
which they had jungles like yours once, with wide-leafed plants and many
flowers and huge trees. It is too cold for that IN OUR TIME, and when the
people of that whorls speak of the present they intend five hundred years.
(384) RTTW
Or this one in transit: "everything else was changing anyhow except the sky
and the water" (346) Only the color changes and the stars come out for that.
He also talks about his father's voice: as if the words were being spoken a
long time ago.
What does that mean: it is too cold for that in our time? why does he say when
the people of that world speak of the present they intend five hundred years?
Isn't that an odd way of saying that the present is anytime in the last five
hundred years?
Normally I would agree with a statement like the first in a text negating the
dust being the same, but it is set up so that if you believe that we are
related to the Vanished People, then we must be in the same place BECAUSE
there is little point in creating the same people in two different places.
And there is the old suggestive trick of talking in negatives: no matter what
adjectives are included that temper or reverse a statement, if you want to
suggest something to someone you do it as follows:
When Jessica says "Don't Fight over me" in Dune, she means "Fight over me."
The negative isn't there because of the way our mind processes statements. If
I wanted to suggest something to you without telling you, or I wanted to fool
you, I would use a light denial like "scarcely" : the suggestion of that
statement is "the dust of that whorl CAN be identical to the dust of this
one." simply by the way it is worded. I am aware this is opposite to its
meaning - are there any linguists or behavioral psychologists who can help me
support this claim - how linguistic suggestion works?
Silk isn't reliable - he tells Hoof that his ring is Seawracks, but earlier he
makes a narrative point of saying that it can't be the same ring. So which is
it? Can you believe blanket statements like that? (which aren't narrated
events but opinions he holds - how would Silk know if it was the same dust or
not? That's the difference: you can trust his depiction of most events, but
you can't trust his opinions.)
I'm tired of writing about this, to tell you the truth. I can see your point.
(All of your points) But I can see mine, too; and two or three statements in
the text can't overturn a hundred small clues that otherwise lead nowhere. I
would rather ignore three or four statements which can easily be chalked up to
the limited point of view of the narrators rather than ignoring all the little
clues that Wolfe obviously planted (he he) in their testimonies.
In other words, Hoof has no idea if he is right or wrong when he calls Lune
Green - he does it unconsciously. Silk doesn't know if the soil is the same -
he just makes assumptions based on the knowledge he has - but we can know more
than our fallible narrators, as a precursory glance at PEACE or Fifth Head of
Cerberus should emphasize.
Marc Aramini
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